Some recovery, a little travel, some Alps and some incredible castles

6/8
After a slow start thanks in part to the Hofbrauhaus and the Brazilians, we took the 2 hr train to Fussen where the Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangu castles were. We arrived in Fussen around 1:30 and at first we thought we'd ride bikes over to the castle, but we couldn't figure out how to get to the trail, so we got our money back and took a cab. They take you through Hohenschwangu castle first -- where Mad King Ludwig II grew up and the Wittlebachs lived for many years.
The tour was 30 minutes and started in a billiards room on the 2nd floor. At the end of the huge table, large window doors opened onto a balcony that overlooked the town below. What a view... Then we saw the Queen's dressing room (where she got changed, didn't actually have any clothes in it), and her bedroom with a secret door leading to the King's bedroom. We were also shown through a large formal dining room with an enormous centerpiece, a music room, and a sitting room. I don't even really remember any of the other rooms...its all starting to run together. Many of the rooms featured original wall paintings from the early to mid 1800s.

After the tour of the first castle we had about an hour and a half to kill before going to Neuschwanstein -- the castle that Mad King Ludwig II dreamed of as a boy and had built in the 1880s. He only spent a total of 137 days living there before he was accused of being insane and he was sent away. We had some lunch and then started the 45 minute hike up to the castle. Probably didn't take us quite that long, but it took at least 35. Before entering the castle, there were breathtaking views of the surrounding town, the gorge just beyond the castle and Mary's Bridge which spanned the gorge. Inside the castle, we were taken through the King's throneroom that was never finished, his dressing room and bed chamber, and the concert room on the top floor. The throneroom was enormous. Italian marble steps lead up to where the throne would have been, if it had every been made. The entire floor below the steps was a mosaic, and a 2000lb chandelier hung above it. Hope thats a strong chain. The bedroom had at least a half dozen intricately carved pieces of furniture -- the top of the bed being the most impressive. There must have been 50 or more spires carved into the top...crazy. The concert/theatre hall on the top floor is still used once or twice a year for concerts. Wonder how much a ticket to that costs. The descent out of the castle took us through the kitchen and also offered some magnificent views of the lake below the castle as well as the Alps just beyond that. Didn't even look real. I commented to the guys that if you didn't see anything moving out in the distance, you could imagine that it was just a huge painting in front of you -- sort of like on from The Truman Show. If you reached out in front of you, you might touch the inside of the globe. And some of our pictures with us in the foreground look like we superimposed ourselves on a postcard. Ha.

Once out of the castle, we headed toward Mary's Bridge over the gorge. The pictures we took of the castle from that high perch turned out to be the best of the day. Wouldn't want to be up there when a strong gust of wind blew by... it was a long way to the bottom. At this point it was 6:20, and there was only one more train leaving back to Munich at 20:03. We decided to walk back to Fussen along a path we saw on the cab way up. I guess we never really found that path...because we ended up on a hiking trail that wound up and down some pretty steep hills. It was only supposed to be 3.8k, but it took us almost an hour and a half to get back and half the time we were wondering if we were still on the right path. A little unnerving, but we made it. Also gave us some great views of the castles and surrounding scenery that we never would have had from a cab or bus ride. We tried to grab some food just before getting on the train, and ended up having to make a mad dash for the train...getting on board maybe 2 mins before it left the station. If we missed it we would have been staying the night in Fussen. Ha. Got back to Munich at 10:30 and we all just crashed.